The Day Izuki Felt
by Mellarkios
Summary: In which Angst!Izuki is shown after being faced with a horrible middle school memory.
1. Chapter 1

**DISCLAIMER: **I own _nothing_ that you recognize. We should give love and praise to the wonderful people who gave life and material for our fangirl life, kudos to the source of everything: mangaka, publisher, his family... etc. I own nothing! Everything belongs to their respective owners.

It all started with an unexpected trip to the convenience store several blocks over.

Sometimes, this store kept stock of the more recent volumes of the manga that the Seirin High Basketball Team had their on. And it was an hour of roaming around the vicinity after a Saturday basketball practice that Izuki ventured inside and decided to have a look around.

He headed to the refrigerated beverages section first and took a mineral water in his hand as to appear inconspicuous. He walked slowly towards the shelves containing the daily newspapers, magazines and his main motive for entering the store, the small collection of manga.

He glanced side to side, as if awaiting for a wild creature to appear from nowhere and assault him. Truth to be told, he was scared. Terrified even. He remembered this part of the city; this place was near where his middle school was. He didn't mind the majority of the people, they didn't care. But he didn't want to meet his old classmates.

The thought of meeting them again nibbled at the pang resonating throughout his chest. _Anxious_. It would be the perfect term to describe what he felt at the moment. He took a deep breath.

Just as he was about three steps away from the shelf, it was that moment that he heard it. He heard the voice.

"Izuki?"

He almost immediately sucked in a deep breath. Shutting his eyes tight, he waited a second before opening them again and facing the source.

Izuki would be called a loony if he described her as being the same as ever. She simply wasn't. There was something different about her, but he wasn't sure what it was. Was it that she had to look up at him now? Maybe she still looked the same - was it her face that was as scrubbed with the redness of pimples as ever, or the roundness of her jaw that remained consistent?

She furrowed her eyebrows. He still hasn't snapped out of it.

"Um, okay," she nodded her head and retreated a step back, after realizing that no, he wasn't going to budge. She still hadn't said her apologies.

One thing Izuki Shun was sure though - she was still a rude, ungrateful, spiteful person.

And then she smiled, "It's been a while."

When Izuki still had yet to make a notion to reply, her left eye twitched. "Where do you study now?"

Finally. Finally the great Izuki Shun has decided to speak up. She shook her head. "How about you? I've heard that you study at Seirin- wait, was it Seirin? I saw one of your games. It was great."

If she was a personification, it would be a great idea to call her Irascible.

"Thanks."

"A friend of mine always talks about your school. Especially your basketball team. Won't stop talking about Number Five, though I don't know why." His ears perked up at the mention of his jersey. "I even remembered the number because of the amount of times she's talked about it."

_It._ So he's an _it_ now.

He resisted the urge to scoff. "You should watch again. We have one next week - it's gonna be held by the nearest school here."

"Which one?" she frowned at the statement. How her face looked so familiar with that frown.

"That's all they told me."

"Oh," she breathed a sigh of relief. "So you aren't spying on the team."

He raised a critical eyebrow. "You thought I was?"

"_Everyone_ thought you were." She smiled that devilish grin at him, apparently feeling pleasant with the idea that she affected him in some way. Still sadistic. "Anyway," she looked around the place. "I have to go. Bye!"

After the ringing of the bells on the door stopped, Izuki felt a shiver pass him by.

If someone were to ask Junpei if it was incredibly weird that Izuki would even think those thoughts, then he would agree wholeheartedly. Something was off. Something was very, very wrong.

Izuki Shun. It was Shun who felt all the anger and hatred build up in less than five minutes, and it wold evaporate into nothing after a while. He didn't even know that he could feel all those spite.

He paced on the nearest park and rounded its perimeter at least two and a half times already. He felt like he was being watched, but that wasn't the case. It didn't matter if he was, anyway. There were lots of instances when-

"Is something the problem?"

"KUROKO! You scared me!" His breath hitched and he clutched at his chest for a moment, slightly jumping in the air as he did so. Composing himself, he took a look around.

His teammates were gathered around the park, taking part in at least one kind of activity or so. Why were they here? At least two hours and thirty minutes have passed since the practice was over, and they still hadn't returned home.

Junpei jogged towards him.

"Hey!" he waved. As he came closer, his eyes seem to be contracting far too much for Shun's liking. "Have you seen a ghost?"

_Yes._

* * *

Hello there!  
It felt a little wrong writing about Izuki feeling angry, or even contempt. But it seemed to fit for him, kind of. A little Izuki Angst wouldn't hurt, would it? :D  
I just imagined him trying to forget about some part of his middle school days, and this seemed to fit. almost. Even if it doesn't. No. It really doesn't.  
I wanted to write something more detailed since I didn't want it to be vague and annoying, but for the life of me trying to figure out a name for a character is not simple or easy. Maybe someday I'd write the next chapter explaining it all or what'll happen because of it (if there is). But for now, this is a oneshot with much loved Izuki Angst.

(Wow I took a writing hiatus for a whole year - I even left the site I usually post my stuff on oh my goodness this seems like a wrong platform to write about)  
Please review! :D Not proofread though, sorry. Wrote this in between studying for Biotech and watching episodes seven and eight of LoK ohgosh Wan my precious bb your voice has this chemistry with savaah i cannot  
Yes, I am one of those people that like to write for other people's approval... I don't feel like writing for myself will do much to improve my whole person /shrugs/. ANYWAAAYY REVIEW PLEASE THANK YOU I LOVE YOU ALL, MWAH!


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer: I own ****_nothing._**

_"Shun, do you really think you can do it? Really?" She was there. There was a group of people behind her, their lips sharp, threatening to break out into a snarl._

_"I can, and I will!" He defended himself, although he started to doubt the 'I can' part._

_"It's impossible!" Her button nose looked pinched as her face split into a satisfied grin, the redness of her face emphasized. Izuki tried not to say anything else._

_When she turned back after getting tired of his lack of reaction, they all followed. Why would they give up so easily?_

_Maybe it was time to give up, contemplated Izuki._

_The sound of the basketball he dropped purposely echoed all around the empty schoolyard._

Izuki Shun would like to protest that he picked up that ball after two hours of being dramatic. Dramatic just wasn't his thing, he had decided. Even fourteen year old Shun was wise.

Their class representative raised an eyebrow, a bunch of flyers folded around her hand. "What are you smiling about?"

Instead of answering the question, he decided to focus his attention on the flyers. "What're those?"

"Your next match!" she squealed, erupting in a rainbow-crazed mania about how amazing the team is, maybe?

"That's… That's Koganei," Izuki pointed out, mildly confused as to why only Koganei's cat-like twist of the lips was featured on the paper.

"And your point is?" she demanded, returning to her old self. She fluttered a piece of that flyer on top of Shun's biology notebook.

"Koga's on the bench," Hyuuga-kun strode in the room, apparently aware of the shenanigans of 2-D's class representative slash president slash dictator.

"So?" countered the female rep. Her neck started to turn red.

"Ikeda-san, everyone knows you have a thing for Koga—ouch!" Hyuuga jumped from the sudden attack on his shoulders.

Scowling at him, the class rep tightened the grip on her flyers. "Don't you dare finish that sentence!"

_There it was. On the tip of his tongue, it—it tasted like…_

_It tasted like home._

"And you –" she pointed to Izuki, who was on the verge of opening his mouth, "—don't you dare make a pun!"

It was a very tiring day, if Shun would be honest about his feelings. It wasn't the first time in the past week that he felt exhausted though – he hadn't been able to sleep peacefully after that ordeal with _that _person. He'd been tossing around in his sleep, and halfway through the night, he would throw the covers to the side and _give up_ trying to sleep.

He laughed bitterly. How ironic it is to hear those words.

His time in middle school really wasn't tough – he didn't enjoy sitting through lectures, but he was patient enough not to loathe it. In fact, it was nice, being surrounded by your friends and supportive teachers, steering you to the future they deemed nice so that the reputation of the school would be good.

In fact, _she_ really wasn't much of a bad person back then.

"Izuki-kun, are you done with the worksheet?" she had asked, her finished worksheet in hand. "What did you answer for number four?"

Shun blinked at his own paper. _How would the transfer of liquid into another state of liquid be explained?_

"Um," he had paused for a moment. "Convection?"

"Oh, okay," she had frowned, dropping into the empty seat beside him. His seatmate had gone for the lunchbreak, if he remembered correctly. She erased her answer and replaced it with what he had said, although she was still unsure. Shun didn't exactly allow her to copy his answer now, did he… ? "Are you going to pass it now?"

"Hold on, lemme just write down the answer," he jotted it down immediately, although it still came out clean. He just had good handwriting, one he was proud of. He had delicate hands, and if one were to judge it, they would never guess he liked playing basketball.

Now though, his hands were far from delicate; they were rough and calloused from all the practice.

Shun stood up, figuring that she would follow even if he didn't say where he was going.

Even though it was Shun who started to lead the way, eventually it was her whom he followed. He couldn't help but notice, but it always turned out this way with whoever was with her; first they would lead, and then she would dominate for the leadership. No one else noticed but him - _nothing could ever escape his line of sight,_ and that was what kept him going for basketball, present day Shun realized.

At fourteen years old, they were a pair that hadn't really seemed unusual back then; they had probably shrugged it off as puppy love. Teenagers too young to notice, but too dumb to care.

Izuki Shun was, at fourteen years old, tall enough for his height. He wasn't as tall as those rumored Generation of Miracles (at the time he was in his last year of middle school, Teikou was only knocking down enemies one by one silently, not at the rate they were going when he stepped foot as a freshman in Seirin) as they were said to be _incredibly_ tall, but it was enough. He towered over the girl for her to reach only the half of his neck.

"Izuki-kun, do you know where you're going after this?" She had piped up, looking not at him, but at the window that let the afternoon sun through.

"After what?" He didn't know what she was talking about.

"I mean after middle school. Where are you going to study?"

"A school that's walking distance from home, hopefully."

"Your high school will influence your records, Izuki-kun," He should've seen that warning when it was still early. "You should be careful in picking."

"It's nothing."

"Universities have high standards," she had protested, a thin line present on her mouth. "You're intelligent. You aren't exactly the most studious student there is, but you handle well on your own without studying! You shouldn't focus on basketball while you still have the chance to decide."

That was her most obvious attempt at persuading him. Though he hadn't realized it back then, he knew now.

"What are you implying, Ando-san?" He stopped walking, her words echoing on his mind.

"Don't waste your talents."

And she had walked off without a word.

Maybe Shun was wrong about what he said when he stated that wasn't all that bad back then.

She was awful.

He wasn't sure why he thought her opinions were important in the first place.

But somehow, deep inside, he felt that he knew.

She was the girl who spoke too brashly, one with malicious intent on her tongue.

And she was the one whom his mother loved from the start.

He didn't exactly know why, but his mother found pleasure in talking about Ando Masuyo, the girl who he once stayed with in the school's playground while waiting for their pick-ups. It was back in kindergarten.

At sixteen years old, sophomore Izuki Shun tells his mother about his brief meeting with her.

"Oh, that's lovely! How is she?" she claps her hand in delight, leaning in as if that would give her one hundred percent of concentration.

He tells his okasan how queer it was, and she only clacks her tongue on how silly he is being.

"She could be up to something…" he suggests desperately, because he is starting to think how stupid he is being, and how is it not coincidental when you meet up with someone who lives in the same village as their old school?

"You're turning paranoid," his mother frowns, setting her cup of tea down.

"She tried to dissuade me in my passion, mother! How could I not be paranoid?" Maybe he feels bad because he raised his voice, but shouting relieves some stress.

"Maybe she wanted the best in you," Shun almost, just almost, gives up in this conversation.

If only his mother saw how Hyuuga and the others gave up. How they lost hope.

Hyuuga wasn't even the worst case.

* * *

Maybe it made more sense if _it_ was a girl. Maybe it's a metaphor for how others move on and continue with their passion, while others just give up with the thought that their efforts aren't enough, and how unfruitful it is. Maybe I like personifications too much eurgh life why

We were supposed to have this English practice for the play but I got so mad with my groupmates for treating the script I wrote as trash that I told them I'm in the province with my family for the whole week. I lied but gvdicjzmlzfsd eurgh it's so frustrating when someone just stomps on your efforts! I almost gouged my eyes out from my rage. I hope you guys aren't like my groupmates and I hope everyone is just considerate of everyone else and please don't be bossy please okay good night everyone.


End file.
